Sandy Duthie, who has died aged 78, flew Nimrods, taught himself to play the bagpipes in the Arabian desert and later became a valued member of Coupar Angus Pipe Band.
During his RAF career flying maritime reconnaissance missions, he also played with the pipe band at Kinloss.
In later life he was chief instructor at Air Service Training, Scone, then flew commercially with Royal Brunei Airlines and VLM of Belgium.
Remarkably, he gained his pilot’s licence three days after his 17th birthday and even before his driving licence.
He was born in Edinburgh on July 17 1945 to George Ian Duthie, a university lecturer in English, and Margaret Bruce Maclean, a former teacher of English.
Canada
When he was two the family sailed to Canada when his father took up a post at McGill University. His sister, Barbara, was born a year later.
In Montreal, Sandy attended Selwyn House school, learnt to swim through the YMCA, and played ice hockey.
In 1953, the family returned to Scotland to live at his grandparents’ home in Beauly and Sandy attended Beauly Primary School.
Two years later they moved to Aberdeen when Sandy’s father became Regius Professor of English, a post he held until his death in 1967.
Learning to fly
Sandy went to Robert Gordon’s College in the city where he learnt to fly with the air cadets and represented the Scottish cadets at rifle shooting and swimming.
He was accepted on a full RAF scholarship to study economics at Edinburgh University in 1963, graduating with honours in 1967; the same year he graduated as an RAF pilot officer.
The following year he was posted as flight lieutenant to RAF Shawbury where he met his future wife, air traffic controller Glennis Huntingford. They married in 1969 and went on to have three of a family and, in time, six grandchildren.
When posted to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in 1970, his mother sent him a chanter and manual and he taught himself to play in the desert.
When he was posted to RAF Kinloss, he bought himself a set of pipes in Inverness and joined the base’s pipe band.
Between 1974 and 1977 he was based in Malta and then was an instructor at RAF Finningley before taking up a civilian post as chief flying instructor at AST at Scone in 1983.
During his nine years there, Sandy and a senior ground instructor from AST were asked to set up a flying school in Kansas.
After piloting commercial airlines from 1994 until 2009, Sandy retired and enjoyed hillwalking, skiing, growing vegetables and playing with Coupar Angus Pipe Band.
He was also heavily involved with Cargill-Burrelton Church where he was ordained as an elder in 1991 and received a certificate for 30 years’ service.
He served at the presbytery in Perth and in Cargill-Burrelton was clerk to the board and property convener.
You can read the family’s announcement here.
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